Dell brings 16:9 Vostro A860 notebook to US

Fulfilling an earlier promise, Dell has quietly made the Vostro A860 available for the US. The system is one of Dell's only 16:9 aspect ratio notebooks but, unlike other extra-wide notebooks, is targeted at the entry level that might otherwise consider a netbook; its 15.6-inch, 1366x768 screen is its stand-out feature, while most components skew towards the low end.

A base system is only slightly more expensive than an Inspiron Mini 9 at $379 after discount ($448 normally) and comes with a 2.13GHz Celeron M, 1GB of memory, a 120GB hard drive and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive. Other pre-built systems upgrade to Pentium dual-core and ultimately Core 2 Duo chips as well as 2GB of memory, larger hard drives and a full DVD burner.

Dell notably sheds the option for Ubuntu Linux that non-US countries receive and gives buyers the choice of either Windows XP or Vista as the default. A860 orders placed today should ship late this month.